Fintech start-up ToneTag on Wednesday introduced mobile payments through feature phones that enables anyone with a standard phone to make cashless payments without having to download an app or worry about internet connectivity.
The firm’s disruptive technology uses audio signals or “tone-tags” for data exchange between devices. Payment instructions are transmitted using a sound signal, through a traditional phone line, without any additional hardware or software requirement or dependency, making cashless payments possible from any mobile phone to another phone or computing device. ToneTag enables contactless payment solution in the existing payment ecosystem by integrating its proprietary software development kit at both merchant (mobile, PoS) and customer interaction points (m-wallet, m-banking apps), and are unlike NFC or QR Codes, which are hardware dependent. It works on all mobile devices, including feature phones, with any need for capital investment in existing infrastructure
Kumar Abhishek, CEO, ToneTag said that although certain technologies such as USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) can be used to transfer funds between feature phones, the solution is not frictionless, as its six-step menu process is cumbersome and a steep learning curve is required to perform these transactions.
Asked about the security of user information being transmitted via audio signal, Kumar said: “The sound wave does not carry any sensitive user data. It only carries a unique encrypted transaction code valid for only 30 seconds.”